keywords: Isis

While nuclear weapon stockpiles have reduced massively since the 1980s, the major arms controls treaties have been gradually eroded. At the same time, and even more dangerously, the world has seen a repudiation of the diplomacy which limited the numbers of nuclear weapons and which has prevented their accidental use.

Drought creeps, infiltrates, sometimes seems little changed day after day, then tightens its grip on this or that paddock, unveils the slowly splitting bottom of a never-before-empty dam ... Even still, according to many of the experienced, crisis-hardened men and women on the land to whom I've spoken, this drought is different.

I must admit, the royal family and all news related to them goes straight to the 'irrelevant' folder in my brain. A friend's Facebook post last week sums up my feelings about it. It was about people saying to her 'The royals are doing a wonderful job' and her rather perfect response: 'At what?!'

Trump finds facts distasteful and prefers to avoid engaging them; the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia finds them in need of censorship, possibly of the most extreme type; and Turkey, with one of the world's most sullied records in treating journalists, retains a reserve discordant with its own findings.

In London of the 1990s, I observed people sleeping under bridges, on doorsteps, in cardboard boxes. How they survived the winters, I never knew, and I suppose many didn't. Since the beginning of Greece's financial crisis in 2008 and the influx of refugees from the Middle East, similar scenes can now be seen in Athens.

Both secularists and religious implicitly endorse the premise that homosexuality and Christianity are incompatible. This indicates to LGBT Christians that they are anomalous, tolerated at best, and to same sex attracted young people raised in faith traditions that they must choose between their sexual orientation and their faith.

In light of the self-serving and at times criminal behavior of bishops around the world as revealed by the sexual abuse crisis, it might seem strange that the appointment of bishops is such a neuralgic issue for Vatican-China relations. But in China, the appointment of bishops has become the litmus test of a so-called orthodoxy in much the same way right-to-life issues are in the USA.

Australia has too many security and diplomatic interests in Iran to squander lightly. The fact its officials are willing to jettison these without getting anything in return vindicates the suggestion that the rather nebulous fact of relationship with the US features much more heavily in Australia's security calculus than its own interests.

In light of the evidence, a national energy policy prioritising renewables should be uncontroversial. But is seems ideology is impermeable to evidence. Instead, we have the government continuing to try to pressure AGL into keeping the Liddell coal-fired power plant open despite clear-cut economic and environmental reasons for its closure.

Recent airing of shocking treatment of elderly residents in Australian aged care facilities has led Scott Morrison to announce a royal commission. Sadly, the allegations of abuse and appalling conditions are not new. What has resulted in poor outcomes for vulnerable citizens, and why have we permitted such treatment to go on?

Instead of following platform prompts to connect more, or logging out entirely, it could be time to get mindful of our audience and develop ways to nourish the online relationships we enjoy. After all, intimacy is still important in the age of the high follower count.

What do the Liberal leadership spill and the Syrian War have in common? Both demonstrate how force of habit, like any other force built up over a long period of time, is very difficult to stop, even when the results are plainly self destructive.